Is Unpasteurized and Raw Juice Worth the Health Risk?

Juice is kind of a big deal in the wellness world (or haven't you heard?). Here at SELF, we have a complicated relationship with juice. In particular, the health halo around juice as a wellness lifestyle thing. Drinking juice is one of those status symbol/cultural markers that projects: "I'm a healthy person who values nutrition and wellness." And that's a little weird!

For starters, there's the fact that drinking your fruits and veggies isn't nearly as nutritionally beneficial as chewing them. That doesn't mean drinking juice is bad and you should never do it, of course—we're not here to judge your choices about the things you eat and drink, and if you want a juice, then drink that juice and enjoy it. Our main goal in calling out the limited nutrition benefits of juice is to let you know that if your goal is peak maximum nutrition and "wellness"... well, juice isn't really the best way to accomplish that.

But then there's the issue of pasteurization, and the rising popularity of unpasteurized or raw juice. Because juicing fans aren’t talking about swigging the juices you typically find on grocery stores shelves. Instead, they're generally opting for fancier wellness-associated juices—the kinds found in specialty shops, restaurants, or made at home using a juicer. And a lot of those juices are unpasteurized or raw juices, often marketed as "all-natural" and therefore healthier or more nutritious than pasteurized juice.

Which is ridiculous. Because the nutrition benefits you may get from opting for unpasteurized or raw juice over pasteurized are minuscule, whereas the health risks, while low, can come with serious consequences. That's especially true for vulnerable populations, like kids, the elderly, the immune-compromised, and pregnant people. If your primary goal in drinking juice is to be healthy, then (a) you should know that juice isn't super healthy to begin with, and (b) the tiny increase in nutritional value for unpasteurized juice isn't worth the potential very negative consequences.

First, let's talk about pasteurization—what it is, and why we do it.

Pasteurization is the process of heat-processing liquid or food to kill bacteria that may be harmful to people if they consume it—think salmonella, listeria, shigella, e. coli, the works.

It's well established than you can get sick from consuming raw, unpasteurized milk or cheese—in fact, a recent report from the CDC revealed that unpasteurized milk or cheese was responsible for 96 percent of cases of illnesses caused by contaminated dairy products. But these dangerous bacteria can be present in unpasteurized juices as well. And that's especially true in bottled unpasteurized juices.

“Just like milk, we want to make sure juice is safe,” Mike Doyle, Ph.D., director of the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia, tells SELF. “Pasteurization is crucial,” Felicia Wu, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition at Michigan State University, tells SELF. “It is important to kill microbes that may be present in juice through microbial contamination of the surface of whichever fruits or vegetables were used to produce the juice. The presence of microbes, both harmless and pathogenic, can be common in crop fields,” she says. Meaning, your fruits and veggies could be contaminated before they’re even juiced, setting you up for potential issues with food-borne pathogens, like the ones mentioned above.

Bottled juices are usually pasteurized because there are so many opportunities for contamination, Benjamin Chapman, Ph.D., an assistant professor and food safety extension specialist at North Carolina State University, tells SELF. Not only can fruits and vegetables have pathogens from the environment, they can also pick them up from the hands of harvesters and sorting lines, he says. “Once you squeeze and aggregate all the juice, you can take a small bit of contamination and spread it through a whole batch,” he says. “It can also contaminate the equipment, establish a biofilm, and contaminate juice that is bottled for days to come.”

Now let's talk about the nutritional differences between pasteurized and unpasteurized juices.

Many juicing fans prefer their juices to be cold-pressed (a method that uses a hydraulic press to extract juice and gives juice a longer shelf life than unpasteurized juices) or raw (juice that was never cooked, heated, or steamed), and some claim these unpasteurized juices have more nutrients than their pasteurized counterparts.

So, yes, that’s true in some instances. But those differences in nutritional benefits are minor, Sarah Ash, Ph.D., a professor of nutrition at NC State University, tells SELF. “Pasteurization can reduce some of the vitamin C and folate content of juices,” she says. “However, something like orange juice has so much vitamin C to begin with that a small loss still leaves a lot, and it similarly still remains a good source of folate.” Pasteurization also has no impact on other nutrients, like potassium levels, she says.

More importantly, Leslie D. Bourquin, Ph.D., a professor and food safety specialist at Michigan State University, tells SELF that people don't have to make a trade-off between drinking safe juices and getting nutrients from them. “The effects of thermal pasteurization conditions have relatively minor impacts on the nutrient content of juice products,” he says. “The safety benefits exceed the potential reduction in nutrient content.” Got that? The safety benefits of pasteurization are better for your health than the nutrition benefits of unpasteurized juices.

And now a quick note about taste differences, because not everyone drinks raw juice just because they think it's healthier.

Many cheesemongers swear up and down that some raw cheeses can taste much better than pasteurized cheeses. It's a whole thing, and for those people going raw isn't really about health at all. The same may be true for some people who choose raw juices: They may just prefer the taste. And there could be something to that.

There are two main types of pasteurization that juices typically undergo, Doyle says: The more typical heat pasteurization and high-pressure pasteurization (HPP), a form of pasteurization that uses high pressure to kill microbes. Heat pasteurization is most common but can give juices what Doyle terms an “off flavor” (it’s basically the reason why most store-bought juices taste different from freshly squeezed juices). HPP, on the other hand, gives juices a more fresh flavor. However, it’s more costly than heat pasteurization, which is why most companies don’t opt for it.

So if you're a raw juice kinda person, and the reason you love raw juice is because you just love the taste—OK, you do you. All we care about here is that you're fully aware of the potential risks, and that you understand clearly than you're not making the healthier choice, in spite of how it might seem.

Bottom line: Unpasteurized juices aren't going to be better for you nutritionally in any meaningful way than pasteurized juices. And they come with more risks.

Food-borne illnesses caused by unpasteurized juice definitely happen, but they're not exceedingly common—and certain vulnerable populations are more at risk than others. Only you can assess whether you're comfortable with the risk. And if you just love drinking unpasteurized juices for whatever reason, there are some ways to mitigate that risk (just as thoroughly washing fresh produce can help mitigate the risk there). If you want to have a fresh-squeezed raw juice at a local restaurant, Chapman says you’re taking a lower risk than if you were to buy it in a bottle. Bacteria would not have as long a time to proliferate, and smaller batches, food code requirements for cleaning and sanitizing the produce, and short storage times can help reduce your risk, he explains. However, he adds, It’s not zero risk, and high-risk populations such as the elderly, young children, immune-compromised people, and pregnant women, should be especially careful. “We have seen hundreds of illnesses and dozens of hospitalizations and a few deaths in the past couple of decades, largely with kids,” he says.

If you like raw juice and want to have it here and there, you’re probably OK to do so. Just understand that it’s not 100 percent safe. “Pasteurized juice is a low-risk product,” Chapman says. “Unpasteurized juice is riskier.”